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Dilemma - wedding invite but I would need to leave 4mth old at home

66 replies

TheBlonde · 29/05/2007 18:44

I'm having a dilemma re a good friend's wedding.

I want to go but it's a no kids affair and it's on a Friday.
So DH would have to take the day off and stay home with the children.
The baby is breastfed so I'd have to pump enough for the day/evening (and convince her to take a bottle).

I just can't decide....

OP posts:
BabiesEverywhere · 30/05/2007 11:19

Why put you, your DH and DD out ? Your baby is more important than a selfish friend, who won't understand that she is being selfish, until a few years down the road when she has her own kids.

What about popping into the evening do with DH and DD just to say hello and congratulations to the Bride?

Tommy · 30/05/2007 11:19

I always assume that "no kids" doesn't include tiny breastfed babies. I would just go and take her with you tbh. She won't need a chair or a meal and I guess if she started crying during the ceremony you would just take her out anyway?

harpsichordcarrier · 30/05/2007 11:22

there is no way I would go.
and there is no way I would marry some twat who bans bf babies from weddings because he doesn't want his sister's children there but there ain't no accounting for taste is there

LieselVentouse · 30/05/2007 11:46

Why should they have a screaming baby ruining their big day?

Booboobedoo · 30/05/2007 12:01

Hi Blonde.

It's a toughy. We've been invited to an Orthodox Jewish wedding (DS will be about 13 weeks) in which I won't be allowed to sit with DS because he's 'a man', so we're just going to the reception.

The couple understand, and everyone's happy.

If she's a really good friend, couldn't she explain to her fiancee about BFing? I know the lead-up to a wedding us stressful, but so is caring for a small baby.

milkchocolate · 30/05/2007 16:29

Different angle.
When my parents were sending the invites out for my Confirmation they said the dinner invitatin was a child free event. Because of my age, 13, most aunts and uncles had kids and some a lot younger than me but some older and with kids on their own, and it was a sit down event at my parents home. Now, my mum usually included children at all parties at our house, especially for Christmas as her philosophy is that "no party or family occasion is complete without children", but on THIS event she wanted it child free. My cousin ignored this and brough her 18 month old "unruly" daughter in pure spite (as she later confessed.) She let her daughter stuff her self with food to keep her quiet, puke it all up over the table, throw knives and forks, glasses smashed down on the floor, etc. When HER own firstborn had his Confirmation some 15 years down the line she realized with shame how stupid she had been and called my mum to apologise .....

Never mind what you think of child free people getting married, children, whatever age can cause a lot of trouble and upset as you cannot foresee everything that will happen.

When I went to my cousins wedding overseas I brought a friend to mind my then 20 month old son. She came down with a tummy bug and was zonked out in bed at the guest house. I took my son to the ceremony. When the priest said: "And do you X take Y... " My son shouted a loud "NO" and started running around. So I took him outside the church for the rest of the ceremony. I had to take him to the reception too. It was a stand up SUSHI event, with NO seats, so there was nowhwere to feed him, and nowhere for me to sit down. I said my good byes very quickly. It just simply wasnt suitable for a child, never mind a mother with a child in tow.

Good luck whatever you decide.

ViciousSquirrelSpotter · 30/05/2007 18:29

"Why should they have a screaming baby ruining their big day?"

Well there's a couple of arguable assumptions there

  1. that the baby will be screaming
  2. that it will ruin their event

Babies don't usually scream all the way through any event, and if they start, most people have enough common sense to remove them from the scene of the crime and do whatever is required (within reason obv) to stop them screaming.

I think it's all a load of precious bollocks, this smooth-running military-precision matching the mother of the bride's hat to the second usher's left sock business. People used to just get married and be done with it. Now they have to stage the sort of event Henry VIII on the Field of Cloth of Gold would revel in.

Pah.

ViciousSquirrelSpotter · 30/05/2007 18:30

Sorry, I haven't had a wedding rant for a few months and just had to let it out of my system. I'm done now, I promise I'll try not to say anything else.

paulaplumpbottom · 30/05/2007 18:30

You should go, see if your MIL can help DH out

Desiderata · 30/05/2007 18:35

VSS - I couldn't agree with you more. Weddings in general are such a pain in the arse.

Blonde - I haven't read the whole thread so sorry if I'm repeating something, but could you not just go for the wedding and skip the reception?

Lizzer · 30/05/2007 21:16

Here here, ViciousSS, I agree!!

LieselVentouse · 30/05/2007 21:17

Doesnt matter what you think of them I hate folk that go out to upstage weddings - not talking about people with babies - I more get pissed off with adults trying to ruin other peoples weddings.

TheBlonde · 30/05/2007 21:20

Thanks all
I have decided to skip the whole thing, buy them a pressie and see the pics after the event

OP posts:
ViciousSquirrelSpotter · 30/05/2007 21:49

Blimey I must go to really boring weddings.

I have never come across adults wanting to upstage someone else's wedding. I thought it only happened in soaps.

Although last wedding I went to, apparantly towards the end, one couple had a major major row while the band kept playing on. Dammit I missed it, I left at ten because of the kids.

madamez · 30/05/2007 23:37

You know, all of you saying that the couple will change their mind when they have children might like to remember that not everyone plans to have children and not everyone can. Parenthood isn't unavoidable.
And there are lots of good, valid reasons for banning kids from a wedding - the most usual one being that there's one kid somewhere in the family who is a total nightmare (with nightmare parents who won't shut him/her up or exercise any restraint). Or there are quite a lot of kids among the friends and relations, which means the extra expense of hiring kiddy entertainers etc - and a wedding with lots of kids has quite a different atmosphere to a wedding with no kids. Alternatively, maybe someone very close to the couple (or the couple themselves) has just been diagnosed as infertile and would rather not have to confront other people's children at a party.
It's their wedding and they are entitled to have whatever they want.

ViciousSquirrelSpotter · 31/05/2007 12:50

Yes.

If they want to invade Austria, they should be allowed to.

It's their day.

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